Just A Kid
by Llewlyn
Summary: Moviebased. Complete. What if Lydia managed to set BJ free in the attic before Barbara could stop her?  WitchyWanda Challenge: Four years, four visitations. Why couldn't she have regular bullies in her life?  Why did it have to be him?
1. Just A Kid

**Disclaimer**: I do not own the rights to these characters, but am too weak-willed to resist playing with them, anyway. :weeps:

**AN**: This was just a flicker that ghosted through my little brain while I was pondering a much stranger story (and having a Michael Keaton moment!) It centers around my favorite moment of the entire movie, when Beetlejuice shows his depth of feeling for the space of one short word.

Premise: What if Lydia managed to set BJ free in the attic before Barbara could stop her? Sorry about the sloppy dialog at the front—I don't remember it perfectly. Feel free to correct me, and I promise to give you credit for the effort!

* * *

**Just a Kid**

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Lydia looked down at the tiny little ghost, feeling lost. " I wanna get in... "

Beetlejuice looked at her strangely, all of his extraordinary energy focused on the dark little girl who stood over him, her feet on the threshold that he would have given all of his precious tricks to step over of his own free will. "Why?"

* * *

"Your name is Beetlejuice?" Lydia squinted skeptically at the frantic bug-sized figure, and suddenly, she knew where she had heard that voice before. "It was you, the snake!" 

"Aw, that was just a joke. One more time, babe, and I'm all yours!" Lydia didn't know if that was such an appealing idea, but here she was, making a bargain with the devil. Wasn't that what she wanted? She had been ready to throw herself off a bridge, but here was her perfect solution—someone who had been there, and knew where to go. No need for a plummet into the icy water after all.

But still, as her lips formed the word, her brain winced in disapproval, and it came out as a whisper. "Beetlejuice."

The little ghost stood, stunned, for a moment, not having ever dared to hope that she would actually do it. Then he hooted for joy. The room exploded in to showering sparks, and suddenly he was standing in front of her, a devilish smile dancing on his lips. "Babe!" He darted in to plant a huge kiss on her cheek, and she held out her hands, warding him off.

Beetlejuice rocked back, peering at her curiously. After a moment's pause, he squinted, produced a dusty pair of glasses from his vest pocket, and seated them on this nose, peering at her like a slightly unhinged professor. "How old are you, anyway, Lyds?"

"None of your business!" She scowled at him, but he tilted his head to study her. She was pale and thin, underdeveloped; fragile. He leaned in close to inhale her, and she stumbled straight back into the wall. "Hey, back off! It's called personal space!" But his expression had change from curious to dubious. Incense, hairspray, and innocence.

"You're just a kid," he said in disgust. "I'm not takin' you anywhere."

"You promised!" she cried, her thin cheeks flushing pink.

"Yeah? Well, I'm not a frickin' babysitter. Got a reputation to uphold. Squeeze ya later, cutie!" He winked and turned, but she reached in to grab his coat before he could vanish.

"No! Take me with you, or I'll send you back, Beetlej--" His hand flew up to cover her mouth, his eyes flashing. And then he sighed theatrically, and his eyes narrowed, a little unpleasantly. His hand on her mouth lifted slightly, and he ran his thumb under her bottom lip. She shuddered, but held still under his cold touch. He tilted his head a little forward as his fingers trailed down her neck. She gritted her teeth, but didn't flinch away. If anything, he admired her tenacity.

"Lyds…" His voice was a rough grumble. "Have you ever been kissed, even?"

At this, Lydia flushed violently and looked at the floor, which was answer enough. He shook his head, bemused. "Why would you want to give all that up? That's the best part!"

She spoke without unclenching her teeth. "What's the point? Boys are idiots." He gave her a half grin that looked almost charming, in a toothy, untamed sort of way, and then closed his eyes, and opened them, a slow blink. His skin, which was desperately pale, began to gain some color. His sunken eyes filled in, and his lips flushed rosy. She realized abruptly that his eyes were an exquisite green blue. Her mouth was suddenly very dry.

"Maybe." He stood before her, looking for the moment just as human as she, darkly handsome and intense. His now-dark hair was neatly pulled back in a ribbon, and his vest was ornate and covered a shirt that was open at the collar. Her stomach quivered in tiny butterfly betrayal, and she swallowed hard. He leaned closer to her, and her heart started to race. "But in a few years, you're gonna be real interesting… to men. Forget the boys." Closer still, his thumb on her collarbone now, on her pulse, and his voice like silk and whiskey. "You should stick around…" Her butterflies gave birth to butterflies, and all she could see was the brilliant intensity of his eyes on her, and his mouth, lips parted slightly to reveal sharp, white teeth. Not quite human, then.

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!" It was Barbara, leaping out of the wall, horrifically distorted. Beetlejuice turned and bared his teeth at her, and then his eyes were on Lydia again, something dark, unholy, and delicious in his gaze. Then he was gone. Lydia turned to look at Barbara, and screamed.

* * *

He realized that he should have taken advantage of his brief freedom to get the hell outta there. But something about the little girl had made him delay, and now he was right back where he started. Beetlejuice scowled. When he got his chance again, he would not make the same mistake. 

Dark eyes lingered in his memory. She wouldn't be a kid much longer. And after 600 years, what was a few more?


	2. White Flag

**Disclaimer: **I don't think I would dare claim ownership of Beetlejuice, even if i legally could. My house is enough of a mess!

**AN: **Okay, so this was supposed to be a oneshot, but blame WitchyWanda for planting an idea in my head. Her challenge: Four years, four visitations!

**"White Flag" **written to Violator by Depeche Mode.

"The things you do  
Aren't good for my health  
The moves you make  
You make for yourself  
The means you use  
Aren't meant to confuse  
Although they do  
They're the one's that I would choose

I wouldn't want it any other way  
You wouldn't let me any way..."

--"Dangerous"

**

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** White Flag: ****Age 17  
**

Lydia stood moodily in the doorway to the attic, her new bedroom, since the Maitlands had moved the beautiful model to the second floor room she used to occupy. It had taken some convincing, since the events of the past year, but Barbara and Adam had assured Delia and Charles that there wasn't anything left of the mischievous poltergeist but bad memories and ceiling repairs. But still, Lydia thought of him sometimes. There on that wall, he had mocked her. There, by that column, he had frightened her with his cold touch. There… she had seen him as a man, and his unreadable expression seemed to her less obscure now than it had been then. Longing, darkness, frustration. She knew, because she had seen the same look in her own eyes many times since.

The attic was now her home. It was dark and four times the size of her own room, and she had set up a sewing corner and a drafting table by the two gabled windows. The darkroom was in the basement, where it was easier to shelter from the light. She sniffed and shook her head to clear the cobwebs. He was gone, and good riddance, right? He had shaken her much deeper than she had cared to admit, for all her lack of fear of the spirit world. So why did she keep thinking about him?

A light breeze stirred around her, and the door slammed shut. She jumped, but then twisted her lip at the door handle. The old house was drafty, but it seemed more drafty on some days than on others. As if on some days there were extra holes. Her eyes narrowed, a dark thought occurring to her. "Beetlejuice?"

A chuckle pricked over the back of her neck, and she shivered. But then the room fell silent, and she began to doubt that she had heard anything at all. Not one to back down from strange happenings, she shook her head again and walked to her closet, unbuttoning her school uniform and glancing over the clothes hanging in her closet for something comfortable and completely un-uniformlike. A dark red sweater that she had never seen before was tucked on the shelf. She unfolded it curiously, and smiled. Delia must have bought it for her, but it was much more Lydia's style than the usual buttondowns and girly frilly things that her stepmother usually got for her. The sweater was soft and fine. She tugged off her shirt and hung it up, and then pulled the sweater over her head. It was a little tight, but not in the arms, and it clung to her weightlessly. "Huh. Delia gets some taste." Lydia smiled at herself in the mirror.

After trading her skirt and knee socks for a pair of loose linen pants that she had put together for herself, she collapsed on the bed with geometry. But bed was no place for geometry, and she was soon asleep, the pencil still clutched in her fingers.

When Lydia woke, the room was dark. She struggled to her elbows, feeling groggy and slow, and squinted at the clock. It was after six, and the winter sun was long gone. Her father and stepmother would be home soon. She stretched and rolled on her back, and then stifled a yelp. Above her, floating in delicate eddys and swirls, was a huge aurora fog. As she stared, wide eyed, the curls of vibrant rainbow colored fog began to move in a very deliberate fashion, until she could make out a message. It read, "Miss me?"

"Beetlejuice." She curled her lip at the fog. "I should have recognized that creepy feeling."

"Nice threads, Lyds," the fog replied, not deigning to rise to her scorn. She cocked an eyebrow.

"Since when did you care about clothes? Your wardrobe could use a little… gasoline and matches."

"Did you check the tag?" The fog seemed to be grinning at her, and she suddenly felt her stomach plummet. Her hand curled under the hem of the sweater and found the tag stitched into the side. It read, "Netherworld LTD. 100 Spidersilk." Oh, crap. And she had actually liked it. She collapsed back on the bed, more irritated than scared now. The fog was rolling gently in brilliant colors, and she found herself a little mesmerized by it.

The swirls formed another message. "It suits you, Lydia."

"I don't think I can accept presents from strange ghosts, B."

"Peace offering." The fog was slowly drifting down closer to her, and she thought she could hear the whisper of his voice in the silence of the attic.

She shifted uncomfortably. "I thought you couldn't come out unless you were called." The fog curled an eddy out and flicked her nose, and she twitched. It was cool, and smelled of ozone. And faintly like cigarettes and brandy. But she held perfectly still as it sunk down to engulf her. The temperature dropped ten degrees at least. When she exhaled, she could see her breath. So beautiful, and yet such a bastard.

Then his gravelly whisper was in her ear. "You call my name in your sleep, Lyds."

"I do not!" She was horrified. Did she? "You're delirious, B! Get out!" But he just rumbled like thunder, and a breeze sprung up in the room. Her geometry book spun off the bed, and her notes, along with the clock and her paints, and dozens of books. A cyclone of her belongings raced wildly around the room." Her breath caught in her throat. "I do not…"

"Believe what you like, Lyds…" The tempest escalated until she covered her head, and screamed. Instantly, calm dropped like a curtain on the room, and she heard the front door open and close.

Her dad's voice drifted up from the first floor. "Lydia! We're home! Cantonese!" She sat up and shivered, but the room was warmer. Her hands tugged fitfully at the delicate sweater. This was not happening. She did not call his name in her sleep. He was lying. He hadn't been able to touch her. Lying bastard. She struggled out of bed and looked at the shambles of her room, sighing. Why couldn't she have regular bullies in her life? Why did it have to be him?

He watched her pick her way through the disaster to the door, and go downstairs, a bewildered look darkening her lovely features. She hadn't changed out of the sweater, which was immensely satisfying. He flicked his long fingers as if preparing to conduct a symphony, and gently tucked everything back on random shelves. That would take her a while to figure out. And hopefully, she would curse him enough to set him free.


	3. Break Everything

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the rights to these characters.

**AN:** Written at 3am during a serious case of story-induced insomnia, to Disintigration by **The Cure**, a band i know Lydia would love.

all this in an instant  
before i can kiss you  
a woman now standing where once   
there was only a girl…

--"Last Dance"

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**Age 18: Break Everything  
**

"So you live here? This is cool."

Lydia nodded nervously at the thin, dark haired boy standing just inside her doorway. His eyebrow ring glinted in the dim light of her bedside table. "Sometimes it gets really cold up her," she said, and then blushed. "I mean, in the winter."

"Ah, the infamous Connecticut winter." He smiled at her, and she waved him into the room.

"Come on in. Nothing's going to bite. On fear of death!" she added under her breath, peering around her, and Sam, the boy, looked at her oddly.

"Lydia, I never thought I would find someone who was as strange as me. But I'm glad I did! You know, find you. I mean, it can get kind of lonely here." He sat down on her bed, which gave her a curious flutter. She had only known Sam for a few months. He went to the public school that bussed in from several small towns, and they had met at a local dinner and art fair and had taken an immediate liking to each other. He was a painter, and was working with textiles that Lydia wanted to use in her costumes. They had continued to speak on the phone, and then one night Lydia had invited him over. So he had come, and she had never had anyone else in her room before. Well, anyone that breathed. Anyone that _counted_.

She sat next to him on the bed, and smiled nervously again. He gazed back at her, his deeply shadowed eyes flickering. Lydia thought he looked very handsome in the dim light. He took her hand and bent toward her, and he was very close, and she could smell coffee and incense and hair gel, and then he was kissing her, his lips soft and hesitant. It was a delicious feeling. She felt her vision dimming out, and opened her eyes.

The lamp was flickering.

Oh shit. It wasn't the lamp. It was what was passing in front of the lamp.

"Don't look!" she managed to get out, but it was too late. Sam was staring at her in confusion, and then he lifted his gaze to the room, and uttered a strangled squeak. They were in the center of a room sized whirlwind of books, papers, and her clothing, shoes, paints, and for Pete's sake, _underwear_, all wheeling rapidly around the room in complete silence. Lydia gritted her teeth and stood up, and the books swerved neatly to accommodate her.

"Beetlejuice! For God's sake, what are you doing?"

Sam was struck completely mute with terror, switching between the angry girl and the spinning room. He tried to get up, but the books and papers and panties converged on him, and he fell back in fear. "Stop it, Lydia!"

"Beetlejuice! Let him go!"

She felt a cold angry growl in her ear that gave her goosebumps. "With pleasure." She snarled at the voice and reached down to grab Sam's hand.

"You better go," she told him, but he stared at her wildly. "I have to have a talk with the resident poltergeist about privacy issues."

Her angry calm seemed to make him even more frantic. In a panic, he rushed the door, being pelted on all sides with erasers and pencils and CD cases. Lydia ran after him, but she was curtained off by her own spinning belongings, and could just hear Sam's terrified scream as the door opened and slammed shut.

"Dammit, Beetlejuice!" she screamed in a fury. And then she heard his dark chuckle, and turned to see him sitting on the floor, sprawled insolently against the wall with a sneer on his face. He stood up abruptly, and everything crashed to the floor. She just gaped at him for a moment. He was dressed… she swallowed hard. He was dressed in a clean black t-shirt and pants, his tall boots free of dust. His arms and shoulders carried the dense musculature of a powerful man, and he was scowling at her with something indescribable in his dark, sunken eyes. The butterflies that had spawned from Sam's careful kiss increased tenfold.

"I thought we agreed that you were going to forget about the boys, Lyds." His voice was dripping with quiet ferocity, but the chill it gave her brought her back from the oddly hypnotic hold he had over her. She scowled at him.

"We agreed to nothing. There was no agreement, Beetlejuice!" She paused. "In fact, we've never agreed on _anything!"_ She flung her arms downward and let out a sharp cry of frustration. He clenched his fingers. And every single piece of glass in the room shattered in a brilliant, shimmering explosion.

They both stood in the silent darkness for a moment, equally stunned. She could still see him, because he glowed with a delicate radiant iridescence, and he had stepped back, uncertain. A red fury, laced with hurt and frustration, rose in her like an animal she could not control.

"That's IT! Go ahead and break everything, Poltergeist! Get mad, have a tantrum! Destroy the house like you destroy my LIFE!" She advanced on him, and he stumbled slightly backwards, and he could feel her anger radiate like heat. "And when you're finished, kindly get the hell out of BOTH!" Her voice rang in the little attic room, and his forehead creased in dismay. Then he sneered at her.

"Good luck getting that little faker back. He doesn't have the backbone for you, Lydia." He tossed something on the bed in disgust. "Happy frickin' whatever, like you care." His voice was constricted, like he had to force himself to speak. And he walked right through a wall and was gone, leaving destruction in his wake like a terrible storm.

Lydia collapsed on the bed and sighed heartily. That had gone well, she thought with heavy sarcasm. Her first boyfriend ever was going to take out a restraining order on her first thing in the morning, and the most powerful poltergeist known to man was her personal one-ghost wrecking crew. She glanced around her, and her eye fell on the gold box that he had thrown on the bed. Feeling that things could not possibly get any worse, she sat up and tucked her legs crisscross, and reached for it.

The box was of heavy paper, covered with gold foil. There had been a note tied to the top, but it had been singed, and all she could read were the letters: PPY … ERSARY… DIA_. Happy Anniversary, Lydia_. Her throat closed up a bit. Oh. Her shaking fingers fumbled a bit with the ribbon, and then tugged the box lid off. Inside was a magnificent opal set in silver on a braided leather cord. She stared, her heart heavy. "Oh, Beetlejuice…" she whispered. It's beautiful."

But she was greeted with empty silence. He had gone, as she had insisted. An immense and pervasive feeling of loss settled over her, and she wept bitterly.

Sleep was a long time in coming, that night, and for many nights after.

* * *

Hey hey! just one more and i'll walk away  
All the everything you win turns to nothing today  
And i forget when to move when my mouth is this dry  
and my eyes are bursting hearts in a blood-stained sky

Oh it was sweet it was wild and oh how we...  
I trembled stuck in honey

"Homesick"


	4. A Cold Day in Hell

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. But I do take full responsibility for saying his name three times.

**AN: **The other half of the 3am insomnia writing session, buttressed by a few cups of coffee and the deliciously lovely soundtrack to A Scanner Darkly. I hope that you like it. With fondest wishes to you all…the last visitation.

* * *

**Age 19: A Cold Day in Hell**

Lydia sat quietly on her bed, an opal pendant clutched in her hand. She had returned from college just a few hours before, and had shared a wonderful dinner with her dad and stepmom before begging fatigue and climbing the two sets of stairs to her room. Now she was crosslegged on the bed, her heart pounding, wondering fretfully whether he would answer her summons.

Not a peep had she heard from him all the long year. She found herself listening in dark rooms, and had even taken to playing with EVP with her old tape recorder, but beyond a few strains on a devilish violin, she had picked up nothing. And so she had waited until this night, determined that she wasn't going to let it pass without attempting to contact him.

"Beetlejuice?" Her voice was swallowed up in the quiet of the room. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Beetlejuice, if you ever cared at all about me, please come." She licked her lips. "Beetlejuice." She waited, but if anything, the silence got heavier. She scowled slightly, and then sighed. "Okay. I'm sorry. Happy now?"

For a moment, nothing continued to happen. And then, a tiny flicker of shadow detached itself from a dark corner and spun to the center of the room, soon joined by other shadows, until a small tornado of darkness coalesced into a figure, and stepped out into the dim light of her desk lamp.

Lydia's jaw dropped. He was in the same clothes as she had seen him in last, but the aura of neglect was severe and unmistakable. If a ghost could look hung over and unshaven, he did. In one hand he clutched an old bottle half full of an oily amber liquid that could have been gasoline as likely as whiskey.

"What?"

She swallowed. His voice, even one single irritated word, had coursed through her like home. "I… um, it's… our anniversary. I thought maybe that you had forgotten?"

"Oh, really?" He studied her for a moment, and then deliberately took a long pull from the bottle. "I had, actually. So many other things to remember." He scowled nastily. "Leave me alone. Never come back. That sort of thing." Lydia gazed sadly at her crossed ankles. He shifted impatiently. "Was there anything else, because I have anywhere else really important to be right now."

Her voice was unsteady, and she couldn't look at him. "Just one thing. You were right."

He snorted. "Lucifer might need to borrow my coat." But in spite of his bitter vitriol, he drifted over and sprawled languidly on her bed, and waited.

"You were right about leaving the boys alone." she began haltingly. He stared morosely at his bottle, but she pressed on. "It's just that… I'm not that all interested in men, either."

He twitched an amazed eyebrow at her. "Did you bring me all the way out here to confess that you're gay?" In spite of the weight in her stomach, she quirked a tiny smile.

"No, Beej. I don't think there's a word for what I am. You see…" She took a deep, calming breath. "You see, I'm in love with a ghost. A poltergeist, actually."

His viridian eyes narrowed intently on her for a moment, and then he rocked back, carefully guarded. "Anyone I know?"

"Maybe." She tugged the bottle from his now-motionless fingers and tipped her head back, taking a long swallow. The foul searing liquid burned away some of her tension.

His eyebrow twitched. "I think that's called necrophilia." She shot a wry glance at him, but he was the picture of innocence, his face blank and eyebrows slightly raised.

Another deep breath. "The problem is, I don't have the slightest idea as to how it might work, or whether it's even possible, or if this poltergeist would even have me, and be willing to work out the details…" She trailed off, her courage spent in the face of his silence. Beetlejuice looked speculatively at her. And then he began, incongruously, to empty his pockets.

As Lydia watched in slightly horrified fascination, her bed became littered with all sorts of strange artifacts. The skull of a huge lizard, a few empty blue bottles, a pink pipe cleaner twisted in the shape of a dog, assorted rocks, bottle caps, a gold thimble, a dusty pair of old fashioned glasses, several bronze keys, a small leather book with a red cover and the word 'diary' written neatly in ink on the cover, a piece of cracked violin rosin, the shell of a huge black scarab, a shabti made of blue faience, several dozen bits of string, a huge gold medallion, and an ATM receipt. Her eyes got wider and wider as he dug deeper and deeper, until finally, out of the shallow watch pocket of his trousers, he tugged a bright object and held it out to her without ceremony. It was his gold ring.

"S'not a contract. This time," he muttered gruffly. She flushed, and he took her hand gently, his palm cool against her wrist. As he slipped it on her finger, he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like an incantation.

"What did you just do, Beej?" she asked suspiciously. He cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Do you trust me or not, Lyds?"

"Emphatically not!" She looked at him with a sweet challenge in her eyes. He stared back at her for a moment, and then broke into a toothy smile. She giggled a little, and the tension between them snapped like an overstressed rubber band.

"It's so I can find you," he shrugged. "Since I don't have time to follow you around everywhere. Busy tour schedule, meetin's with the Queen, state business, all that celebrity stuff."

She smiled gently at him, and then at the ring, and was silent for a moment. "So am I condemning myself to a lonely relationship that ends up with me talking to the mirror a lot?"

He stared at her, dumbfounded. "You were willin' to commit to me without even knowin' if I was gonna be there for you?"

She looked soberly up at him. "B, I've been… alone… since that night last year. And before that, since ever. I haven't been able to look at boy or man without seeing your face. I know it's pathetic, but—"

He stopped her with a finger to her lips. She had a flashback to the first moment of their intimacy, all those years ago. But this time, she didn't shrink from his touch. His gaze drifted to her lips, and she let her eyes close slowly.

Suddenly, the details didn't seem all that complex, after all.

:fin:


End file.
